


careful, sweetheart

by Jongley



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Multi, OT4, be socially responsible like them and STAY HOME DUMMIES (if your job allows it!), blame that stupid tiktok dylan posted, just like. the 4 of 'em are socially distancing from everybody but themselves, lynds and brinksy want to know why that damn video was posted so they ask dyls and tayler, oh god I'm SO SORRY, on! taylor's! account! the implications!!!, that's it that's the fic, this is very sweet and also incredibly cursed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-16
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 15:12:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23177101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jongley/pseuds/Jongley
Summary: Alex cackles for a full minute, when he sees Stromer’s video. It’s just—it’sridiculous, is what it is, just totally and utterlyinsane, and Stromer didn’t even send it to the group chat, or anything, justposted it publicly, available for literallyanyoneto see.The video just keeps looping, since he’s too busy trying to catch his breath to pause it, Stromer’s dumb face mouthing, “Don’t get too comfortable, sweetheart,” and every time Alex gathers himself enough to look back at his screen, he starts wheezing again.
Relationships: Alex DeBrincat/Dylan Strome, Alex DeBrincat/Lyndsey Bice/Dylan Strome/Tayler McMahon (Implied), Alex Debrincat/Lyndsey Bice, Dylan Strome/Tayler McMahon
Comments: 10
Kudos: 66





	careful, sweetheart

**Author's Note:**

> [if you somehow haven't seen it](https://twitter.com/dustlandgrace/status/1239633231949041669)
> 
> wrote this in google docs in like an hour, lightly edited it, that's all i'm emotionally prepared to do today, sorry not sorry. the gdoc is literally titled "stromer WHY" which, i feel like that really encapsulates my sentiments atm.
> 
> archive locked from the start because duh. DO NOT repost this anywhere my dad is a lawyer and he's bored because we're all social distancing at home, this is not a threat it is a pROMISE.

Alex cackles for a full minute, when he sees Stromer’s video. It’s just—it’s _ridiculous_, is what it is, just totally and utterly _insane_, and Stromer didn’t even send it to the group chat, or anything, just _posted it publicly_, available for literally _anyone_ to see.

The video just keeps looping, since he’s too busy trying to catch his breath to pause it, Stromer’s dumb face mouthing, “Don’t get too comfortable, sweetheart,” and every time Alex gathers himself enough to look back at his screen, he starts wheezing again.

“What the fuck is going on in here?” Lynds asks as she walks into the room. “It sounds like you’re strangling a hyena or something.” This does not help Alex regain control of himself.

“W-Watch this,” he manages to get out, holding his phone out to her.

The stupid song starts up again, and he sees her gasp of incredulity, watches her eyes crinkle at the corners as she, too, starts to lose it.

“Oh my _god_,” she says, breathless already, “What even?”

“I wish I knew,” Alex says, because he really, truly does.

“TAY!” Lyndsey yells, craning her neck towards the door, “DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS?”

A muffled, “WHAT!” drifts back to them from the other end of the apartment. Lyndsey rolls her eyes and grabs Alex’s hand, dragging him out of their bedroom and down the hall.

“Your boy is wildin’ on main!” Lynds calls as they walk, “You need to change your tiktok password!”

Alex sniggers into his free hand; Stromer is definitely in his room with Tayler right now, hearing every bit of this, probably making the grumpy-cat face he picked up from Davo.

Lynds doesn’t bother knocking on their bedroom door, just barges right in like they all usually do, boundaries pretty much non-existent between the four of them at this point.

(Last week, Tayler had come into the bathroom to pee while Alex was in the middle of a shower; he was used to that kind of behavior from Stromer after years of being teammates, but that show of familiarity from Tay had kept him grinning for the rest of the day.)

Tayler is already looking up at them from where she’s sprawled over Dylan; Dylan, in turn, is sprawled out on their bed. As Alex watches, Stromer reaches over for a pillow and covers his face with it, groaning.

“Have you seen this?” Lynds asks Tayler, gesturing to Alex’s phone, video finally paused but still on the screen.

“Uh, duuhhh,” Tay says, rolling her eyes. “It’s my account.”

“Have you actually, though?” Alex asks, “Because it’s fucking—” he doesn’t even know _what_ it is, and, whoops, he’s back to laughing uncontrollably.

Tayler sighs. “I have sponsored content on my Insta; my whole social media presence is carefully cultivated,” she informs them. Then she grins, wicked. “Also, it’s funny as shit, right?”

“Oh my god, it so is,” Lynds agrees, and the girls both start giggling. Now it’s Alex’s turn to roll his eyes fondly.

Lyndsey sinks down onto the end of the bed, and Tay sits up to meet her, both of them giggling as they scroll through their phones, looking at views and reactions and comments and fucking voodoo, for all Alex knows. He takes a few steps so he’s even with Dylan’s chest, sits on the edge of the bed next to him.

“You ready to come out yet, bud?” Alex asks him softly, and Stromer whips the pillow off his face, expression panicked as he meets Alex’s eyes.

“Not like that, dude,” Alex laughs, “I just meant from behind your pillow, not, like, publicly.” They’d talked about it in the vaguest terms: once, when they were still on the Otters, both of them unsure about their sexuality and scared to admit it to anyone else, then again, more recently, when they confirmed that, for the foreseeable future, they’d publicize their relationships as two normal heterosexual couples, rather than anything else.

“Oh,” Dylan says, voice soft. “Well in that case, I guess so.”

Alex reaches over to facewash him gently. “I can’t believe you made that video, bud.”

“Really?” Stromer looks skeptical.

“Okay, I can believe you made it,” Alex allows, “but usually you’d just put that shit in the groupchat, not post it.”

“What can I say,” Stromer asks rhetorically, smirking as he stretches, drawing Alex’s eyes to the strip of skin and curly hairs peeking out from under his shirt, just above his waistband. “I was feeling lonely.”

“You were literally in the same apartment as me,” Alex starts, disbelieving, “we’re all social distancing together! Tay was right here with you, too, how could you be lonely?”

“Yeah, but you and Lynds were so far away,” Dylan whines jokingly.

“It’s like twenty steps down the hallway to our room, bud.”

“Maybe for your short little legs, sure,” Stromer says, "So that'd be like, what, ten steps for me?" and Alex has to pounce on him for that.

“You’re just proving my point!” Alex exclaims, digging his fingers into Stromer’s armpits to make him squirm.

Stromer tries to stay silent as Alex tickles him, but it’s a losing battle; Alex gets one hand to the sensitive spot on his neck, and Stromer makes his weird, loud honk-laugh that Alex loves so much.

He’s vaguely aware of the girls getting up from the bed then, no doubt muttering something disparaging about boys, and as they walk into the hall, Alex hears Lynds ask Tay, “So wait, where’d you get all those pictures from? Did you already have them saved orrr…”

Alex keeps attacking Dylan, working to swing his weight over Stromer’s body, settling on top of his upper thighs to keep him pinned. “Say uncle!”

“No, I won’t, I’m gonna—” here Stromer tries to flip them, but it’s to no avail, since Alex has years of practice of using his admittedly limited size to keep this particular wily fucker contained.

“Brinsky, c’mon,” Dylan gets out between peals of laughter, “buddy, you gotta—”

Alex ignores whatever bullshit Stromer was gonna say, choosing instead to lay off the tickling and use the element of surprise to grab Dylan’s wrists and pin them above his head.

“Got you,” Alex pants, grinning down at Dylan.

Stromer smiles back. “What are you gonna do with me?” he asks, still breathing hard.

“Hmm, I don’t know.” Alex moves Dylan’s wrists to one hand, brings his other up to tap on his own chin, mock-thoughtful. “I think my boyfriend was telling me something about feeling lonely… and we can’t have that, now can we, sweetheart?”

Dylan nods and leans up as Alex bends down, and they meet halfway with a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> and then they bone, probably? or ralph jumps onto the bed because he wants to wrestle, fuck if i know. credit/blame to abby (@hockeytoruleall) on twitter for saying "OT4 OT4 OT4 OT4" when i rt'd the video in question.
> 
> i'm on twitter @jongles3 and tumblr way less often @ tbeauty4 and i'd love to hear from you in any way, shape, or form.
> 
> also please tell me if i missed any dumb typos or anything, and remember: STAY HOME! (if you can! no judgement if your job doesn't let you! sorry for yelling! be safe!)


End file.
